'The day I discovered my boyfriend was a troll on social media'

Jayne, 40, was mortified when she discovered her boyfriend’s obsession with his smartphone was more about being a social media troll.

I’d been dating Josh for three years and we were pretty serious, even talking about moving in together. I loved him a lot and I know he loved me, he was very kind and attentive, always put me before himself.

He was a great fun, a great cook, super smart, just an all-round loving guy. He got quite obsessed with social media, though - particularly Instagram, where he posted about twice a day. But it got to a point where he was constantly on his phone.

I realise many people are very attached to their phones but he was one of those people who, even if we were at a pub or out for dinner, or even going for a walk, he would pull out his phone every five minutes. I kept saying to him, "What’s so important you have to be on your phone so much?” but he'd just laugh it off.

His Instagram page was mostly photos of day-to-day life and I was featured in many of them, so there was nothing to worry about there.

Now, this is going to sound like the good old cliché, but one night he went out to grab our takeaway dinner and, amazingly, left his phone on the table.

It was very unlike him not to have his bloody phone attached to him! So, of course I couldn’t resist taking a look. I went straight to his Instagram and instead of his own page there was another account – 'Ah', I thought, 'So he has a second, secret account'. Secret because I had no idea it existed.

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There were only five posts and they were all photos of his dog with funny captions. It was when I looked at his notifications that I was horrified and clicking on them all revealed that he is a total troll and that’s the reason he set up a second account.

I knew I only had about 15 minutes up my sleeve so I had a good look and was mortified by what I’d seen – he would go on the public accounts of several young models or actresses and write nasty things. He wrote comments such as, "you are such a fat ugly bitch," "who did you screw to get that job?" and "All that plastic surgery and you’re still an ugly F**k."

I remember just sitting on the couch reading his messages and feeling sick to my stomach. It was just awful. Beneath his comments are several comments from others in support of the young women.

Also, I enjoy watching TheBachelor each year and Josh would catch snippets of it but wouldn’t watch it with me. So I was shocked to see his Instagram name appear on the account of some of the rejected girls from TheBachelor, calling them ugly and other awful things.

When he came home, I held up his phone and said, "So I found your secret account and your trolling.”

At first he tried to deny it but when I was able to quote some of the nasty trolling back at him, and let him know I was disgusted, he broke down.

He didn’t give much of an explanation apart from saying at first it was "for fun" but then he got a weird kick out of getting a rise out of people. He promised to stop but that wasn’t enough for me.

Why did he do it? Was he really a misogynist and used his secret Instagram account and fake identity to troll women as a way to get some sort of release? I just couldn’t stay with a man like that, and although he apologised, he cried, and he told me he was ashamed of himself, it was over for me.

He promised he would get some help. Whether or not he has had therapy, I have no idea, because when I broke off our relationship I cut off all communication with him.

It’s really impacted the way I see men. If a man as "nice" as Josh could do this, then what about the next guy I meet? Could he be a secret troll too?

I’m glad we are over, but I still miss the lovely guy I fell in love with.